CARS ARE DEFINED by their wheels. Without wheels, a car would be a stationary metal hut whose engine existed only to power the air-con: the essential distinction between mobile and static architecture would have disappeared. So car designers are taught to take wheels very seriously. It’s a part of studio tradecra to know the optimum ratios between wheel height and beltline, for example. It affects the whole aspect of the car.
These ratios are numbers every designer knows. More subjectively, we enjoy looking at cars whose wheels and tyres fit the arch in a way that suggests swollen muscularity straining at T-shirt sleeves. If wheels look lost in their arches, a car seems maladroit. This was the only error spoiling the otherwise consummate masterpiece that was the LSU Ro80.
Designers know how…
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Octane (Digital) - 1 Issue, October 1, 2015